Thursday, February 28, 2013

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Here I am once
again, landing just past the sell-by date for final considerations of the year
in movies past, when all the Oscar hype and grist for the mill of 10-best lists
everywhere gets recycled into enthusiasm, or lack thereof, for next year’s
offerings and some burning incense to ward off the faint whiff of defeat in the
air already in the wake of the year’s early offerings. (Who’s got Identity Thief and A Good Day to Die Hard already penciled in on that best-of list
for 2013?) One more day, and no one will officially care about, much less even
remember who won all those awards everybody’s been in a twist about since
October (or earlier), to say nothing of all the sorry also-rans coming soon to
a Netflix queue near you.

And whether or
not you are surprised to hear it, many of the winners, but even more of those
also-rans, were worth talking about in 2012. If my own list of movie pleasures means
anything, it’s a signifier of the gratitude I feel that any one of the creations
found below came along during the calendar year. I find it ridiculously
difficult to seriously complain in general
about the relative quality of any movie year which brought me the ecstatic
highs of Holy Motors, the blissful
cinematic catharsis of Life of Pi,
the humanizing outrage of How to Survive
a Plague, the blasts of transgressive shock and choking laughter of Killer Joe,the disorienting joys and fears of Cloud Atlas, the almost hallucinatory clarity of Looper, the overwhelming quiet of The Secret World of Arriety and,
speaking of quiet, the welcome return of an atmosphere of artfully conjured
dread in The Pact. Much ink has been
spilled and many pixels have been electronically designated this past year in
service to hand-wringing about the End of Cinema As We Know It. But the presence of these movies, as readily
available (and I’ll get to that notion of that availability in a second)
alternatives to the usual menu of aggressively marketed sound and fury that
gluts the American Cineplex on a weekly basis, the fact that they’ve somehow managed to
bubble up through the cracks in the armor of corporate controlled pop culture, is in itself a healthy dose of encouragement.

The difference is that even in major metropolitan areas many of these movies
only play theatrically for a couple of weeks, if that— Holy Motors was around for about a month, in dribs and drabs, here
in Los Angeles, and another movie on my list, Perfect Sense, didn’t run in the movie capital of the world
theatrically at all, only managing to secure one week on one tiny screen in New
York City. But if you’re not in a major urban center and you hanker to see even
a relatively high-profile foreign language movie like Amour, odds are you probably won’t get the chance to see it or anything
other than the most heavily marketed fare on a big screen. So while the mere
against-all-odds existence of demographically uncharted movies like the ones
Leos Carax or Terrence Davies or the Dardenne brothers make would seem to be
evidence that cinema is doing perhaps better than expected in a world where it
ain’t really a movie unless it’s got a Happy Meal or a YA book tie-in, it’s the
cinemas themselves where these films could be shown that might in fact be dying.

The picture is even bleaker for small-town theaters which live and breathe on
only the most broadly appealing Hollywood fare, home-owned and operated
businesses which can’t sustain more than one screen and/or can’t afford to pay
for the costly conversion to digital that the studios are basically forcing
upon them. For places like the town where I grew up, which has had its own
keen, if perpetually rundown little art deco movie palace since about 1940, the
coming year brings with it the distinct possibility of those doors being
shuttered once and for all, signifying the end of seeing movies the way they
were always meant to be seen for whoever is left there that might actually want
to go out to see a movie.

For myself, 2012
marked the year when I, as an active moviegoer, may have finally been priced
out of a pleasure I’ve enjoyed for as far back as my conscious memory can
extend. If I haven’t, then I will have certainly been forced to seriously cut
back on trips to the theater, even after having long ago discovered the
low-tech joys of the second-run houses. It might have been that night out with
the family in November, when I dropped $60 just to walk my family in through
the front doors of the AMC in Burbank on a Saturday night to see Life of Pi, that sealed the deal,
symbolically as well as fiscally. This realization especially hurts when I think
about how I’ve always tried to instill in my kids a love for the moviegoing
experience, especially when it comes to seeing movies from different eras, the
sorts of movies their immediate circle of friends don’t typically get exposed
to or have patience for, soaked up in places that still have some sense of what
it means to see movies with a like-minded audience, and perhaps even a measure
of reverence for movie history. Losing that would be the unkindest budgetary
cut of all.

More often this
year I’ve found myself relying upon the digital delivery systems available to
me to keep abreast of the highs and lows of the movie year, which means that
I’m usually behind on what’s new, scrambling at this time of the year to catch
up and take part in the discussion if not in an exactly timely way, then as
part of the bottleneck of commentary that occurs when the industry turns to
talk of little gold men. Not the best
formula for someone who would like to keep fresh from a writing perspective--
I’ve never been particularly relevant, so I usually don’t worry about that. So
I choose to enter the fray of the new year (already now two months old— how’s
that for a timely and relevant reference?) in the hope that maybe this year
things will change, I’ll be able to see more and talk about more, and the
digital revolution will somehow extend to the smallest markets and manage find
a place for places that aren’t in the heat of the spotlight to survive and
thrive, providing a link to the theatrical experience for at least another
generation.

All that said, I guess I’d
better get the wagons circled around my own little plot of cultural
insignificance here and get to the duty and joy of revealing what tickled my
fancy in 2012, cinematically speaking. This year, as always, there are huge
holes in my viewing that, despite all my attempts since the first of January,
remain unfilled. I’ve never pretended that my own list is a “Best Of” in way
shape or form, that declaration presuming some sort of complete or
near-complete overview that I have never had and probably never will. I only
just saw Zero Dark Thirty last night,
for crying out loud, and there’s probably at least a hundred other movies I
wish I could have seen, for purposes of this exercise, sure, but also because I
just want to see ‘em.

An incomplete
list of my shortcomings, movies in 2012 which I did not
manage to see in time for consideration, would include the following: Ai
Weiwei: Never Sorry, Amour, Beyond the
Black Rainbow, The Central Park Five, Detention, End of Watch, 5 Broken
Cameras, The Gatekeepers, Hitchcock, The House I Live In, Jeff Who Lives at
Home, Klown, The Loneliest Planet, Neil Young: Journeys, Once Upon a Time in
Anatolia, The Pruit-Igoe Myth, The Queen of Versailles, Red Hook Summer, Robot
and Frank, Rust and Bone, Safety Not Guaranteed, Side by Side, Silver Linings
Playbook, The Sound of My Voice, Tabu, This Is Not a Film, The Turin Horse,
Turn Me On, Dammit!, Under African Skies and Your Sister’s Sister.

So be it. Now to
the year that, for me, most definitely was.10) SEVEN
PSYCHOPATHS (Martin McDonagh)

A giddy,
hallucinatory wrinkle on the creative process, and dognapping, and loyalty, and
even love (the true wipe-someone-else’s-ass variety, to paraphrase The Deep Blue Sea) populated by actors
more than up to the task of fleshing out the clever conceits of its
meta-script. McDonagh operates in the long shadow of Pulp Fiction, as so many others have over the past 19 years, but
his vision is distinctly, morbidly playful, all his own. If his movie can’t singlehandedly
justify all the bad movies that have come in that movie’s wake (or match the
sublimity of his own In Bruges), then
it at least acts as a happy salve for all the third-degree burns that resulted from
the relentless, ever-diminishing echoes of Tarantino.

9) PERFECT
SENSE (David Mackenzie)

Humanity is
gradually, mysteriously stripped of one sense after another, in preparation for
the ultimate cloak of night, while two lovers (Ewan McGregor and Eva Green)
stumble toward each other in what might be either the worst or the best-timed
bloom of ardor in the history of doomed love. Mackenzie conjures horror without
pyrotechnics and a glorious, agnostic acceptance of the ultimate cold comfort,
when you know someone is near after all the lights have gone out, even when
your body can no longer tell you for sure. It’s an apocalyptic romance, moving
to the unchartable interior poetry of the heartbeat, which simultaneously holds
court, and clasps hands, with impending darkness.

8)
KILLER
JOE (William Friedkin)

Friedkin’s
adaptation of Tracy Letts’ barbarously funny play, a familial Texas noir
deep-fried with psychological acuity and mischievous evil coursing through its
veins, has artistic boldness and lacerating conviction to spare. It’s
remarkable in many ways, not the least of which is the way it avoids easy
laughs at the expense of its characters—for all their avarice, misguided
affections, easily manipulated intentions, possibly incestuous leanings, lack
of common sense and general reserves of spite, malice and opportunism, even the
worst of them never inspire facile judgment. Killer Joe also boasts, top to bottom, the year’s most fearless
cast, anchored by Matthew McConaughey, riffing on and fully fleshing out the
vaguely sinister, queasily welcoming shell he’s flirted with since those
Wooderson days.

7)
OSLO,
AUGUST 31st(Joachim Trier)

A young recovering drug addict named Anders finds himself on the
streets of the city where he grew up, and where
his life slowly derailed, after being released from a recovery center. The
faint, encouraging glow of warmth from each encounter with old acquaintances,
which he hopes will help introduce a new beginning, is soon replaced with a
chilling sting when those embers fail, one by one, to fully ignite. From the
beginning Trier deftly defines the protagonist against his environment-- nature
provides no solace, and nor, finally, does the buzz of life in Oslo, filled as
it is with people whose lives seem just starting, unencumbered by weight, by
ghosts. Every frame Anders shares with friends and passers-by begins to feel
more like a haunting, a constant reminder of connections long ago
short-circuited and, of course, the ever-present option of the one spark that
might take him to where he really wants to go.A bracing, sustained feat of empathy, Oslo, August 31st is a movie that is
profoundly sad but never suffocating or sensational-- it's a portrayal of an
addict whose primary physical need is expressed almost exclusively in
humanistic, spiritual terms and imagery, a need eloquently written on Anders'
long, angular face, in his tired eyes, on the streets which course with the
promise, and the denial, of sweet release.

6)
THE
IMPOSTER(Bart Layton)

This
unnerving true-crime story, a mix of documentary realism and unsettling
dramatizations, spins around a narrative so outlandish that it might give even
the most brazen pulp writer pause. A 13-year-old boy disappears from his Texas
home, only to apparently resurface—in
Spain— three years later, to the relief of his family, who accept this now
much more grown-up person without question, even though he bears little
resemblance to the boy they remember. Director Layton dispels what we assume
will be the hook of the story instantly— the man impersonating the boy tells us
himself of his deception. The rest of the movie unfolds like the most sinister
page-turner, revealing layer after astonishing layer of deceit and betrayal,
relentlessly calling into question the certainties of the audience almost as
soon as they’ve been established. I didn’t see a more riveting movie, fact or
fiction all year.

5)
HOW
TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE (David France)

Here is a riveting and humbling act of
historical journalism which depicts the coming together of a community to morph
into grassroots activists and self-taught scientists. These activists, who could hold their own with medical
professionals in debating the efficacy of treatment and prescribing ways to
marshal resistance to the proliferation the opportunistic and resilient AIDS
virus in the earliest days of the plague, also learned how to cope with
fractious forces from within. The movie illuminates the struggles and the
splintering of alliances which took place within ACT UP itself and how the
movement was able to survive even the well-intended differences of the
individuals within it.How to
Survive a Plagueis a
frightening film in many ways, but it’s also an exhilarating one which offers a
glimpse into a particular strategy of resistance motivated both by desperation
and intellectually proactive, communally-based decision making.

4) LIFE OF PI (Ang Lee)

Yann Martel’s seemingly inadaptable book gets the treatment of a lifetime from
Ang Lee, who has marshaled it into a satisfying, transcendent,
breathtaking movie, one that uses all the digital tools of the trade to conjure
life from a story that, technologically speaking, probably couldn’t have been
told five or six years ago. It’sfull of
genuine awe and terror and supreme flights of cinematic imagination, with no
capitulation to the pull of standard-issue Disney-style anthropomorphizing--
the tiger that hitches a ride with the title character after a horrifying
shipwreck remains a mysterious and potentially deadly companion whose
persistent threat compels Pi to find ways to survive. Life
of Pifeels like a
great summation of the possibilities yet to be tapped within the realm of
realistic and hyper-realistic effects on screen, as well asthegreat
justification for the full-body plunge into CGI that has characterized American
and, increasingly, world cinema over the past 15 years or so. But
it’s also a wondrous summation of Lee's strengths as a filmmaker and
a storyteller-- it has the feeling of a story uniquely interpreted by someone
whose destiny it was to tell it through the magic of the movies.

3)
LINCOLN
(Steven Spielberg)

The brilliance of
what Steven Spielberg, scenarist Tony Kushner, the masterful film editor
Michael Kahn and the movie’s top-to-bottom marvelous cast have done here is
exemplified in the way that Lincoln,
which is easily the tightest and most crisply focused of the director’s career,
manages to avoid the crippling claustrophobia that could have been brought on
not only by the near-exclusivity of its interior settings but by the daunting
minutiae of the language and its distant political context. As Abraham Lincoln, Daniel Day-Lewis
is simply (and I mean that in the sense of being unadorned) brilliant at
exuding the confluence of this revered president’s stubborn facility for
manipulation and his penchant for folksy wisdom; for articulating with
forcefulness and subtle humane appeal his convictions and his uncertainties;
and the weariness in his personage that is only the smallest of costs he will have
to pay for shepherding a nation through a moral crisis of unprecedented
magnitude. This looks to be Spielberg’s first real zeitgeist film, deftly
connecting crucial national history with modern circumstances as much in the
way the movie has been accepted as through its artistry. Current events-style
resonance isn’t what makesLincolna great American movie, but it does
help it to transcend the sort of self-congratulatory vibe which might ring out
beyond the sadness of its inevitably tragic finale. The note of hope one feels
at the conclusion of this experiencefeels
genuine, and genuinely earned.

2) THE
KID WITH A BIKE (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)

A film that
reverberates with a mixture of empathy, longing and intangible dread, the
latest offering from the Belgian brothers embraces their traditional naturalism
while imbuing it with an almost marginalized sensual appreciation of the
aimless freedom of childhood. Our gaze takes in the movements of a young boy
who, having been spurned by his disinterested father, latches onto his bike, a
gift from that father which keeps him connected to the world as well as a world he resists letting go of, one he
really never existed in, and those of a young hairdresser who, without apparent
calculation or consideration of the ramifications for her own life, takes the
boy into her care. Simultaneously lithe and somber, the movie make us
understand the neediness of this boy without ever resorting to cheap sentiment,
and in doing so informs a genuine concern for his fate, for the struggles lying
ahead (and beyond the purview of the directors’ portraiture) in how he might
make his way, were the tenuous connections he maintains with the adult world to
crumble. The heartbreaking place these filmmakers bring us to, under a tree, holding
our breath for a boy who has never courted the sympathy of the audience or his
benefactor, engenders the best kind of suspense, a sensation that hardly
dissipates at the point where the Dardennes force us to look away, to begin
only to imagine where he might ride to next.

1) HOLY MOTORS (Leos Carax)

It begins with Carax himself getting out of bed, walking
through a wall and into a movie theater, where he will project for us (and onto
us) sights we couldn’t possibly anticipate or probably even imagine for
ourselves. We meet a man (Denis Levant) who leaves his family for another work
day, hopping into a white limousine where he reveals that the skin we’ve just
seen him inhabiting is a false one. He’s an actor who sheds his artificial face
and immediately begins applying a different prosthetic make-up in anticipation
of his next role. The car, driven by a handsome, much older maternal figure
(Edith Scob) will take him to several destinations over the course of the day, all
of which will require him to take on a different appearance and emotional state--
a homeless woman, an assassin, a performer acting out an erotic scenario in
motion-capture, a feral, sexually propelled monster, an old man on the
precipice of death, and several others—each scenario demanding reserves of life
the actor cannot keep for himself, in service to roles and emotions and ideas
that seem interchangeable at will, unmoored from simple rational explanation or
genuine catharsis.

The experience of Holy
Motors is unlike any I had at the movies this year; it tickled me with a
sensation of giddiness I’d imagine is akin to being a balloon loosed from the
grasp of a child, buffeted by currents and rising ever higher, anticipating the
moment when the pressure of the air puts a sudden end to its escape, and not
caring about when that moment comes. Holy
Motors embodies an aim that is oft paid lip service to by filmmakers, yet
rarely actually achieved-- the taking of the audience on a journey where each
new step, each new image and, of course, the final destination is impossible to
anticipate, where seemingly incongruous and random juxtapositions of experience
end up feeling unquestionably alive and connected to a uniquely
cinematic nervous system. Levant’s performance is anchored in an intangible
melancholy that is probably reflective of the director’s—as each new identity
is processed, you can feel his exultation at the freedom of being untethered
from the routines of life, but also the toll those roles might be taking on his
own shrouded inner sanctum. There’s a strange exuberance at the heart of what
he does here that, of course, precisely dovetails with Carax’s own
preoccupation with how the movies can transport us beyond our preconceived
notions of what they can mean to us, what we ask of them and they of us.

Jim Emerson, writing about the movie for this year’s Muriel
Awards, observed about Holy Motors that
“No movie surprised and delighted me more in 2012; none made me laugh harder or
gave me such melancholy chills. It's a movie that captures what it feels like
to be fully alive and dying at the same time — which is the state we're all in,
more or less.” It’s so rare for a movie to take a viewer on a journey like this,
affording this sort of exultation at the unexpected, the whimsical, the morbid,
the fanciful, the mortal, the leap into the unknown. For this reason, and for
all the hidden moments that made me gasp in astonishment and delight, Holy Motors is the movie of the year. (And it premieres on Blu-ray today, February 26!)

Django Unchained
at the New Beverly Cinema, preceded by a slew of blaxploitation and spaghetti
western trailers hand-picked by Quentin Tarantino, including Take a Hard Ride, The Arena, and of
course, Mandingo, plus Chuck Jones’ classic Looney Tunes short Dog Gone South (“Oh, Belvadeah! Come heah, boy!”) And you could even get your very own Django Unchained New Beverly Cinema T-shirt!

Deadliest Experience:

Les Miserables, overwrought in every way, and the
ceaseless gush over The Master and Moonrise Kingdom—these are definite
contenders.But neither approaches
the interminable heights of boredom scaled (in headache-inducing, reality-shredding
HFR!) by The Hobbit: The Never-ending
Story.

Biggest Surprises:

Richard Parker

The events that cause the deceitful protagonist of The Imposter to exclaim, “I guess I didn’t have to worry about Nicholas Barclay walking in the
door anymore…”

Biggest Disappointment:

The gap
between my soaring expectations and my thudding reaction to Skyfall.

Most Annoying Double Standard:

In The Sessions, Helen Hunt’s good
faith in appearing fully nude for her scenes as a sex surrogate ministering to John
Hawkes as Mark O’Brien, a poet condemned to an iron lung by polio, is rewarded
by the movie ducking for cover when the thematically significant opportunity
arises for its male star to do the same. During a crucial scene, Hunt holds up a mirror to Hawkes so
that he might see his own body for the first time in 30 years, but the
reflection is framed and angled so that the audience is denied the same sight
that is so important to Hawkes, and it feels like a breach of faith, a crucial
misstep, especially when considering what O’Brien wrote about the actual
experience:

“Cheryl
asked what I thought of the man in the mirror. I said that I was surprised I
looked so normal, that I wasn’t the horribly twisted and cadaverous figure I
had always imagined myself to be. I hadn’t seen my genitals since I was six
years old. That was when polio struck me, shriveling me below my diaphragm in
such a way that my view of my lower body had been blocked by my chest. Since
then, that part of me had seemed unreal.”

Most Unwelcome Extensions of a Franchise:

American Reunion, The Hobbit: An Unexpected
Story, Men in Black III and, what the hell, Prometheus.

Never
Judge a Movie By Its Trailer:

Dark
Shadows, John Carter, The Master, The Three Stooges

Unless
It’s This One:

****************************************

And
now a special guest. My daughter Emma has become quite the young anime
aficionado, and so I asked her to write about the shows she liked the most in
2012. Here’s what she had to say:

TOP 10 ANIME FOR 2012 by
Emma Cozzalio

10)
SPIRAL: THE BONDS OF REASONING

CREATOR:
Kyou Shirodaira

This
series focuses on Ayumu Narumi and his efforts to solve the mystery of the
blade children, cursed with cat like eyes and a seventh rib bone. Two years
ago, Ayumu got a call from his older brother before he disappeared. He said “I’m
going to pursue the mystery of the Blade Children. Until I can touch with my
bare hands the unseen truth, I will not return.”Two years have passed and Ayumu
hasn't seen him since. Later, mysterious things have been happening to him. He
then befriends the newspaper club`s President, Hiyono Yuizaki. Together they
try to find out what or who the Blade Children are, while looking for Ayumu’s
brother.

I
love this anime very much because you have to use your brain. One time Ayumu
had a bomb on him and he had 2 minutes left to get it off before it exploded, and
actually thought he was going to die. J I
recommend it to anyone who wants to try anime.

9)DURARARA

CREATOR:
Ryohgo Narita ILLUSTRATIONS: Suzuhito
Yasuda

Durarara tells a story of a Dullahan working as an
underworld courier in Ikebukuro, an internet –based gang called The Dollars,
and the chaos that unfolds around the
most dangerous people in Ikebukuro.

This
show was very exciting to watch because the story was very exciting. I also
loved how Izaya and Shizuo fight all the time. Not to mention I am a member if
the Dollars! I LOVE how all the characters have their own problems and how they
all have to do with the main problem in the story. My favorite character is
Izaya. He is the guy in the brown jacket with fur on the hood. He is pretty
funny and scary.

8)DEATH
NOTE

CREATOR: Tsugumi
Ohba, Takashi Obata

Death
Note is about a teen age
boy named Light Yagami, who finds a note book on the floor with the title DEATH
NOTE on it. At first he thinks it’s a prank, but his curiosity takes control
and he tries it out. It turns out that its real! He then meets the shinigami
named RYUK. He says that he was the one that dropped the note book in the human
world and he did it because he was bored. Light then says that he will kill all
the criminals in the world and become the GOD of the new world he creates. But
he has a problem. L, the greatest detective, wants to catch Light/KIRA and make
him pay for his crime. His name to the public is KIRA or in English Killer.

I
enjoyed this ANIME because of the fight between Light and L. I am an L fan and
I think Light is crazy, but some people *cough* fan girls *cough*think what
he`s doing is right. I REALLY don`t like Light and I think he`s a complete psycho,
but that’s just my opinion. GO L!!!!J

7) 07 GHOST

CREATOR:
Amemiya Yuki

07 Ghost is about a former slave who now goes the
Barsburg Empire`s military academy due to his ability to use ZAIPHON, a type of
supernatural power. Teito is an amnesiac who has very frightening dreams. The
night before the graduation exams Teito and his one and only friend, Mikage,
vow to never to abandon each other. But the next day Teito overhears people
talking about him. That’s when he realizes the speaker, Chief of staff Ayanami,
is the one who killed a man in his dreams, who is his father. Because he tried
to attack Ayanami, Teito was captured but escaped with the help of Mikage.
After Teito escaped he took refuge in a church with help of the three Bishops. He
is now on a quest for revenge against the Barsburg Empire.

What I
mostly like about this anime is……well, everything J. Also the little pink thing in the picture, his name is
Mikage. If you want to know why his name is the same name as Teito`s friend you
will have to read the story to know.

6)
HIGURASHI NO NAKU KORO NI

(Higurashi when they cry)

CREATOR:
Ryukishi07

The
main character, Keiichi Maebara, moves to Hinamizawa and befriends his new
classmates Rena Ryuga, Mion Sonozaki, Rika Furude, and Satoko Houjou.
Himamizawa may look normal and peaceful to keiichi. However, the happiness
abruptly ends after the annual Watanagashi Festival, a celebration to give
thanks to the local god, Oyashiro. Keiichi learns that every year for the past
4 years, one person has been murdered and another has gone missing on the day
of the festival. Keiichi soon becomes involved in the strange events. In each
arc, he or one of his friends becomes paranoid, and a crime is committed .Most
of the time the crime involves the murder of one of his friends. Near the end
of each arc the truth is slowly revealed.

The
thing I like about this show is that you never know who will go insane next. I
showed my dad the first episode of this show and he said he enjoyed it. This
show is comedy and horror mixed together. Plus the gore is SCARY!!!!!

5) CASE CLOSED

CREATOR:
Gosho Aoyama

Jimmy
Kudo is a 17 year old prodigy who helps the police solve crimes. One day when
he was attacked by two criminals. They forced him to take an untested drug .
When he woke up he had shrunk. Kudo hides his identity to hide from the men
that poisoned him. His new name is Conan Edogawa. He pretends to be a little
boy and moves into his friend, Rachel`s house. Her father is a privet
detective, so Kudo thought he could get some information on the men, but it
turns out that Rachel`s dad, Richard Moore, is possible the worst detective
ever. Kudo continues to solve criminal cases as Conan, but usually poses as
Richard with the help of special gadgets invented by his neighbor and friend, Dr.
Agasa

I
never really was a fan of older anime for some reason (I don`t know why), but
I really liked this one because I like how smart kudo is and how he solves
crimes. Each episode is a new case he must solve, while still searching for the
men who poisoned him. Also it’s funny to see how he tries to hide his identity
from his friends. But of course there are a few that find out but they don`t
tell. <3 o:p="">3>

4) PANDORA HEARTS

Pandora Hearts is about Oz, heir to the Vessalius Duke
House, has just turned 15. His life is rich and carefree, darkened only by the
constant absence of his father. At his coming- of -age ceremony, everything
changes when the clock that was silent for 100 years rang. Oz is then cast into
the Abyss only to be saved by a “chain” known as Alice, or B-rabbit. After Oz
and Alice escape the Abyss Oz finds out that 10 years have passed since he was
casted into the Abyss. The mystery there begins as Oz unravels the mystery
behind Alice, the Abyss and the strange organization called “Pandora”.

I
think this Manga got first place because it taught me a lot of lessons. There
are a lot of examples I could put, but this one I liked:

“All your ‘self sacrifice’ only pleases yourself! Have you
ever saved anyone that way? All you want is to protect yourself! People
who think so lightly of their own lives, DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO PROTECT
ANYONE!” - Elliot Nightray to Oz Vessalius.

3)
ANGEL
BEATS

CREATOR: Jun Maeda

Angel
Beats takes place in the afterlife and focuses on Otonashi, a boy
who has lost his memories of his life after dying. He meets the leader of the
AFTERLIFE BATTLEFRONT, Yuri. She invites him to join the group. The AFTERLIFE
BATTLEFRONT was created to fight against God. The BATTLEFRONT fight against the
student council president Angel, a girl with supernatural powers. All the
students that go to this high school are already dead. The high school is like
a place for those who had a terrible life and died.

I
saw this on Netflix and I thought it look interesting and I was right! I have
watched it more than twice. (why because it only has only 23 episodes) Every
time I watch the show , I cry. Think I`m joking? Ask my dad and sister, they
will tell you how much I cried. L I think I liked this show so much
because all the characters remind me of people I know.

2) KATEKYO HITMAN REBORN

CREATOR: Akira Amano

Katakyo Hitman Reborn, or KHR,
revolves around a boy named Tsunayoshi “Tsuna” Sawada, who is chosen to become
the VONGOLA Family`s boss due to him being the great-great-great-great grandson
of the first VONGOLA boss. He is told by that he will become the 10th
VONGOLA boss, because all the other candidates for the position have died. The
9th VONGOLA boss sends Reborn, an infant HITMAN from Italy to train
Tsuna. But Tsuna doesn’t want to be the VONGOLA boss. Tsuna unwillingly goes
under training from Reborn. Reborn’s main method of teaching is the
“Deathperate Bullet”, which will make the person shot with it be “reborn” with
a stronger self intent on fulfilling his dying will. Though he is very clumsy ,
Tsuna becomes stronger, more confident, and willing, which makes him better
suited as the Vongola Family boss. Tsuna is called “No good Tsuna” at his
school, but because he met Reborn he now has friends. Like Gokudera Hayato,
Yamamoto Takashi, Lambo, Ryohei Sasagawa, Hibari Kyoya, and Mukuro Rokudo. (They
are all in the picture.)

I
love this anime so much. I am on episode 88 and I LOVE IT!!!!!! I recommend it for anyone who wants to watch
anime one day J

1)SKET DANCE

CREATOR: Kenta Shinohara

This
anime is about 3 kids that have a club called SKET DAN and how they help people.
SKET DAN stands for Support, Kindness, Encouragement, troubleshoot. Bossun along with his friends Himiko and
Switch they help people that come to their club. SKET DAN`s rival is the
student council.

I
really liked this anime because it actually made me laugh. Plus their music is
awesome. My favorite character is Switch because the way he talks is so funny.
He talks through his computer, but the reason he talks through the computer is
not funny. It`s not because he can`t talk, it`s because he doesn`t want to. And
stuff…….GO SWITCH!!!!!!!!J (The guy in the picture on the left is SwitchJ)

THANK YOU FOR READING!!!!!!!!

THIS ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN BY: EMMA COZZALIO J

To be fair I must give credit to Wikipedia for
some of the articles I wrote. I took a bit from what was on Wikipedia for these
animes: KHR, Pandora Hearts, One Piece, Higurashi
No Naku Koroni, Angel Beats, and 07 Ghost.